Training agencies safety and course integrity assurances.

[Scuba]

Learning from an instructor entails a level of trust placed by the student on the instructor. Given what are generally exceptional stories told, common to a greater or lesser degree depending on a persons subjective view, of instructors who are plainly incompetent or outright dangerous in some cases, what measures do the training agencies have in place to monitor and enforce the instructor, course content quality, and safety issues.

Is periodic instructor skill evaluation conducted at all?

Are instructors monitored to verify whether they follow established safety guidelines in their courses? Present a quality course according to guidelines?

Are there any hidden quality control personnel posing as students evaluating instructors and course material. How much of this is done, if any.

Is there a strict objective procedure in place to suspend, place under probation, and terminate instructors who demonstrate egregious student endangerment? I would consider having a student run out of gas or requiring gas donation to prevent this, or an instructor loosing sight of a student - once, grounds for immediate suspension and remediation instruction. Twice - termination. Naturally, extenuating circumstances should be considered.

When deemed necessary, are remedial courses required of deficient instructors to retain license? Is there a probationary process in place for instructors requiring closer supervision, such as new and deficient instructors.
Is any of this ever deemed necessary?

What percentage of students, if any, are queried to ascertain that no flagrant safety violations are taking place? Should they be? All of them?

Are student complaints about their instructors given adequate consideration? Followed up to determine the facts, and if necessary is disciplinary action taken with the only consideration being course and safety integrity?

How many instructors were reprimanded, suspended, placed under close scrutiny, forced to take remedial courses, or terminated last year?

Is termination or disciplinary action taken by one agency honored and communicated to enquiries by another?

What can those in the know say to assure us students and potential students, about safety and course quality content when taking a class from any one of your agency instructors.

I’m sure I’ve left some concerns out that others may want to add. Hope some of you “in the know” reply.

 

[DiveTyme]

Dear Scuba,
I can onlly tell you my experiences. Sometimes I dive with my ex students and I ask them if they have ever been contacted by the agency I certifed them with. About 25% of them receive a questionaire. I also know an instructor that was suspended for not following agency standards. When I took my Instructor Evaluation, the agency failed over half there. Some say the agencies "rubber stamp" instuctors through. I did not see that.

I always give my students a questionaire after the class to rate me and to check if they are comfortable with everything.

I can only say I have had bad doctors, lawyers, architects, accountants, and teachers. There are always a few bad apples in every field.
Tim

 

[MikeFerrara]

Most agencies use student questionairs but I don't think we can rely on that. Well, I know we can't. They ask the student...did you do x, y, and, Z. They don't ask did you learn to do it well because the student has no reference.

I have invited PADI folks to come out to the quarry and watch with me but they declined. They declined because they know what they'll see.

Another point is that some of the worst classes I've ever seen were totally within the standards. As long as ot's possible to teach a lousy class within the standards, quality control based on standards violations is a waste of time.

For example...To get certified a PADI student must swim 30 ft neutrally buoyant and hover for one minute in confined water. Read the OW performance requirements and see how there's little to no meaningful buoyancy control requirements.

Diving is mostly swimming around neutral yet in the entire course they are only required to do that for a few seconds. How is that going to teach a person to dive. The whole premis is invalid.

In OW a dive must be 20 minutes. The time is short to allow for cold, changes in conditions or students that are bad on air. How many shops do I see who's OW dives consist of a DM leading a group out to a platform where they kneel and do skills for the instructor and then the DM leads them back and they get out of the water.

They get certified without doing a single real dive. It's total BS but it's within standards as long as the whole thing takes more than 20 minutes.
I promise that the agency knows this is going on and they approve of it.

 

[Walter]

Mike,

PADI standards don't even require you to make your students swim at all in open water. They could walk or crawl on the bottom and still qualify without a standards violation.

 

[-hh]

Are there any hidden quality control personnel posing as students evaluating instructors and course material. How much of this is done, if any.

But that would cost the Agency real money...and there's your answer.

Is there a strict objective procedure in place to suspend, place under probation, and terminate instructors who demonstrate egregious student endangerment?

Yes, there are officially very formal QA processes within the Agencies. But that doesn't mean that they are effective.

Personally, I lost my faith in "The System" when a friend of mine who was an Official QA Investigator for their Agency mentioned in disgust that they had done an investigation, found clear Standards Violations and recommended that the violator be promptly terminated...but later found out that the violator had been instead allowed to return to teaching without even a reprimand.

When deemed necessary, are remedial courses required of deficient instructors to retain license? Is there a probationary process in place for instructors requiring closer supervision, such as new and deficient instructors.
Is any of this ever deemed necessary?

These things would also cost money, would they not?

What the Agencies are often concerned about are nailing the instructors who stopped paying their annual membership dues, but continued to train and certify students...this is once again a "follow the money".

Are student complaints about their instructors given adequate consideration? Followed up to determine the facts, and if necessary is disciplinary action taken with the only consideration being course and safety integrity?

As soon as a termination recommendation by a formally appointed within-Agency QA Investigator is overturned by a "higher authority", you know that their QA System is a morally bankrupt sham.

How many instructors were reprimanded, suspended, placed under close scrutiny, forced to take remedial courses, or terminated last year?

Not many. For example, Here is the official "List of Bad People" webpage from PADI, which is the largest Rec Agency. It has 48 individuals listed.

Ironically, the webpage itself is of poor quality, because it does not list an "As Of" revision date for the page itself, nor does it clearly state the dates of termination for the individuals listed ... all of this serves to conceal if this list is the number of individuals expelled within the past month, or past decade.

With all of this in mind, IMO, the 48 individuals listed appear to be the total sum of terminations since 1990...which would be <4 terminations per year.

Is termination or disciplinary action taken by one agency honored and communicated to enquiries by another?

Perhaps by accident.

What can those in the know say to assure us students and potential students, about safety and course quality content when taking a class from any one of your agency instructors.

"Its the Instructor, not the Agency"; research your candiate instructors carefully, and educate yourself on the general background of what you're looking for formal instruction on before you even sign up for said training. Your best referral will be an experienced diver who you trust who refers you to an instructor that they personally have known for many years and trusts well enough to make the recommendation. DO NOT trust the referral of a buddy who just got OW-I certified 8 weeks ago - - he doesn't yet know enough to know what he doesn't know. Unfortunately, this is a hard problem, as the consumer in this case is by definition not capable of being informed (if he was informed, he wouldn't be looking for said training).


-hh

 

[Walter]

"Is termination or disciplinary action taken by one agency honored and communicated to enquiries by another?"

"Perhaps by accident."

Not exactly true. I do know when I renew with YMCA every year, they ask if I'm currently under discipline or if I've been suspended by any other agency. I'm guessing other agencies do the same. I can't tell you what they do with a yes answer.

 

[MikeFerrara]

If the agencies want to inforce standards or quality in any way all they need to do is stop by one of our quarries on a Saturday. They'll instantly see SCORES of students with dangling equipment and improperly weighted.

If I was running the QA department for an agency the first thin that I'd do is such a tour of some training sites. I would permenantly pull the tickets of every instructor who had their students dressed as I described above.

That would get rid of probably 75% of the low haging fruit right there.

 

[Snowbear]

...For example, Here is the official "List of Bad People" webpage from PADI

The last expellings (is that a word?) were in 1997?

 

[Genesis]

If the agencies want to inforce standards or quality in any way all they need to do is stop by one of our quarries on a Saturday. They'll instantly see SCORES of students with dangling equipment and improperly weighted.

If I was running the QA department for an agency the first thin that I'd do is such a tour of some training sites. I would permenantly pull the tickets of every instructor who had their students dressed as I described above.

That would get rid of probably 75% of the low haging fruit right there.

They won't, because they don't.

I alerted an agency to a very serious problem that was clearly documented by the logs of the instructor and thus the copies kept in the student's folders last summer and they refused to do ANYTHING without a signed, written statement from the actual student.

Why? Its one thing if you're alleging something that's a he-said/she-said. Its entirely another if all they have to do is request the records for that particular class on a particular date and look at the paper to find it.

The system is DESIGNED to discourage complaints; of course once you "rat out" someone like this, just try getting anything from that shop - ever - in the future.

It would be worth it if I had any confidence that the "instructor" involved would have their ticket yanked. But, from what Mike has related here, that simply doesn't happen - even when a student dies.

When you have an agency that refuses an offer to come out and witness the incredibly POOR performance of their instructors, as Mike is describing, it becomes quite clear what they're REALLY interested in.

This problem is NOT limited to one agency.

 

[MikeFerrara]

Current PADI policy is to place an instructor in non-teaching status pending investigation when there's a student fatality.

That wasn't the policy at the time though.